Thursday, August 10, 2006

Vietnam's Internet Filtering Related to Politics

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported this week that Vietnam Internet service providers block politics, not porn. According to university researchers, "'Vietnam purports to prevent access to Internet sites primarily to safeguard against obscene or sexually explicit content...However, the state's actual motives are far more pragmatic.'" Blocked sites include ones "'with politically or religiously sensitive material that could undermine Vietnam's one-party system.'" Porn sites, however, are not blocked.

According to the piece:

"China and other regimes worried about political sites also turn their attention to blocking porn, said Derek Bambauer, a research fellow with OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration of Harvard University, the University of Toronto and the University of Cambridge.

Bambauer also said Vietnam's filtering got more sophisticated in just the six months studied."